Foles is 'the guy' for the Eagles

Philadelphia Eagles' Nick Foles is seen during the first half of an NFL wild-card playoff football game against the New Orleans Saints, Saturday, Jan. 4, 2014, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Michael Perez)

PHILADELPHIA - Not that there was much doubt about it, but Chip Kelly said that Nick Foles is his quarterback going forward, and he did it as directly as possible. Twice.

"Yeah," the Philadelphia Eagles head coach said Monday, first when asked if he expects Foles to be his starter as he works the roster this offseason, and then again when asked if that that meant Foles is "the guy."

While it seems obvious that a quarterback who delivered one of the most statistically impressive seasons in league history would start, Kelly inherited Foles when he took over less than a year ago amid speculation that he would try to draft or sign a quarterback of his own. Foles also lost a competition to Michael Vick for the job before winning it while Vick was out with an injury.

The second-year pro threw 27 TDs with just two interceptions for a 119.2 passer rating that was third-best in league history and led a 7-1 finish that carried the Eagles to the NFC East title and a playoff game, where Foles threw two more TDs.

"I think he's a great decision-maker," said Kelly. "I think he's extremely accurate where he puts the ball. I think he's very young, and I think people still sometimes forget about that. He didn't become our starter until after Mike went down in the (Oct. 6) Giants game, but in the short body of work he did, I think he did an outstanding job."

Foles was one of the prominent topics during Kelly's final game post-mortem, two days after his first season ended in a 26-24 wild card loss to the New Orleans Saints.

Most of the discussion related to the future, following a season that exceeded expectations. Kelly praised the team's chemistry as the thing that excites him the most heading into next season.

He wouldn't talk about wide receiver DeSean Jackson's belief that he deserves a new contract following his career season, just two years into a five-year, $48 million extension - "I'm never gonna have a discussion over it," he said - and evaluated his own performance at 58.8 percent: the winning percentage for his 10-7 record.

Foles finished off one of those wins after Vick was injured and started eight others in his breakout season. Kelly said he's not concerned with whether or not that makes Foles a franchise quarterback.

"If the Eagles are a franchise, which we are, then Nick's our quarterback," said Kelly. "There's no tags to it. That doesn't make sense to me, and I don't pay attention to it."

"I've never looked at a label or anything as meaningful," said Foles, also dismissing talk of whether or not he's a franchise QB.

"I need to get better," said Foles. "I don't look at this season as, 'Oh, man, I did good.' I have a lot of stuff to work on. We didn't win the last game, and a lot of that goes on the quarterback."

While Kelly committed to Foles, he didn't rule out competition in training camp, saying it's an important part of creating a winning team.

"There's always competition, and I think you could ask Nick that, too," said Kelly. "I think everybody kind of feeds off of that. And then if you also have a guy that's not competing to be the starter with Nick, then what if Nick gets hurt and then all of a sudden the other guy goes, 'Oh, my God, I'm not ready to play because I thought Nick was going to be the guy.'

"One of the things we do here is we compete. Obviously you've got to have one guy. Right now, Nick's that one guy, but I don't think Nick's ever been afraid of competition. He showed me that the first time we had that."